El Camino and Chevelle Door Panels - Knock, Knock

How to re-skin a set of '68-72 El Camino/Chevelle door panels.

Interiors see a lot of use and are subject to more wear and tear than you might think. While you may believe that if it doesn't get touched it won't wear out, unfortunately, that is not the reality of the situation. Even if we, as owners, keep our grubby paws off of the material, the sun and time will degrade just about any vinyl, leather, cloth, or the like. That's just the elements, If you add in the stuff we do by just getting in and out or driving the car, you can start to see why interiors eventually die.

We have done stories on how to refurbish bucket seats and headliners, and now it's time to take on door panels. Camaros and the early Chevelles ('64-67) have a door panel that stuffs up into a chrome strip and can basically be installed without much prep-work. When you look at the Impala or later Chevelles the door panels come all the way up the door to meet the window, so there is a some pre-assembly that needs to be done before you can hang them on the car.

The aftermarket offers the flat part of the door panel and then it is up to you or an upholstery shop to take out the metal piece from the stock door panel and transfer it to the new stuff. Then, a couple of years ago preassembled and ready to go door panels were offered. These cost about $54 more than the unassembled units. So we set out to show you how to do it all.

In this story we are going to tackle the harder of the two options: the non-assembled door panel. Once we have our panel assembled, we'll show the proper way to get it back on the car. This is where the assembled door panel customer can pick up and follow along. When we're all done, you can decide which route is better for your budget, skill set, and time frame.

We looked to Original Parts Group (OPGI) for all our parts. All the pieces are reproduced to OE specs. The panels have the correct die electric pleats, the seals have the right amount of fuzzy, the clips are the right shape, and the handles are nice and shiny.

Part

Part Number

Price

Door Panel Restoration Kit

EK69BK

226.98

Door Panels Black

In Kit

Water Shields

In Kit

Armrest bases

In Kit

Armrest pads

In Kit

Screw and clip kit

In Kit

Armrest Base Screw Kit

PP0225

12.98

Window felts

WF05131

56.95

Door Handle kit

CH20015-PR

34.95

Window Crank Handle Kit

PZ00575-PR

20.95

Vent Window Crank Handle Kit

C220041-PR

27.95

Window Crank Washers(Foam)

M240070

9.95

Door Handle Washers (Plastic)

CH7732

6.95

Window Handle Springs

PP02502

11.90

Door Panel Mounting Plug Set

CH25223

22.99

Total

$432.55

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El Camino and Chevelle Door Panels - Knock, Knock

1 Here are the main components of the story's door panel. These are reproductions of the factory panels from the proper Madrid grain, right down to the chrome beading. The die-electric seam are square-edged and flat, not puffy like lesser quality panels. We are very impressed at how crisp the lines are and how smooth the chrome trim is. We have seen others that the chrome looks all wrinkled in the curves. These are offered in black, dark blue, dark green, light green, parchment, red or saddle. These are from an unassembled door panel, so we will need to reuse our factory top rail.

2 Here are all the accessories that will complete our restoration. The door panel kit comes with water shields (not shown), armrest bases, armrest pads, screws and clips. To flush that out, we grabbed door, window, and vent handle kits, armrest base screw kit, window felts, window crank washers (foam), door handle washers (plastic), and window handle springs. We went with reproduction pieces to keep the budget down, but the parts still look and feel great.

3 Here is the '69 El Camino door panel and it has seen better days. The vinyl is torn, the cardboard is warped, it has all kinds of odd holes, and lastly, the less-than-desirable speaker install. As you can tell, we have multiple reasons to fix these up.

4 It takes a Phillips screwdriver for the armrest assembly and a handle removal tool to pop the clips holding the window handles.

5 There were five Phillips screws along the bottom of the panel that had to come out as well before we could use the panel removal tool to pop the panel free and lift if off the door.

6 We need the upper metal cap that is attached to the cardboard portion of the door panel. You can just score the vinyl with a razor knife along the metal cap and give it a yank for quick teardown.

7 The window felts are attached to the metal cap via some pretty strong staples. We prefer to cut them off with a grinding wheel instead of trying to straighten them out. The metal cap is pretty easy to bend and grinding them off is less damaging.

8 The factory used some sort of punch machine to stamp four-fingered holes in the metal that then went through the cardboard and bent over, joining the two components. We don't have that fancy machine, so we'll be using something a bit lower tech--pop rivets. To prepare the cap for this procedure, we needed to grind down the four fingers flush on each punch, all 30 of them.

9 The new door panels have multiple precut punch-outs on the backside for things like window cranks and such. Since the aftermarket panels fit different applications it's a good idea to use the old panel as a guide to which ones you need to pop out.

10 Now the cap and panel are temporarily placed on the door. The cap just sits on the top of the door and doesn't really have a lot of adjustment. The panel, however, can move all around so it is lined up along the front, back, and bottom edges all at once. Then a pen is used to make lineup marks.

11 Using the lineup marks for reference, the cap is clamped on top of the panel. With a 3/16-drill bit we drilled a hole through the cardboard at each end and evenly spaced along the cap. We used the holes in the cap as a guide instead of drilling new holes.

12 Coming from the cardboard side we installed a bunch of 3/16x1/8-inch grip range aluminum pop rivets. Then with a small drift we drove out the mandrel piece, which will make the next step work out much better.

13 We flipped the panel over and backed up the rivets with a body-working dolly. Then, with a hammer we flattened out the rivets as much as possible. Here is a side by side of the before and after. This smashing down technique leaves the flattest rivet possible on this end and the large head of the rivet on the other side. Since the door panel vinyl will be pulled up and over this area, you don't want anything thick sticking up--but more on that later.

14 Now that the two components are joined, we masked off the area with the rivets. Then, we coated the cap and the first layer of vinyl with spray glue. The 3M spray glue stuff will work if you don’t have a glue pot. Not gluing the area over the rivets will also lessen the chance of them photographing through and making the panels look all bumpy.

15 After letting the glue tack up, we pulled the masking tape and stuck down the first layer. This layer is needed in the manufacturing process to give the die-electric pleats some depth. This layer is trimmed flush along the top edge and folded over on the sides.

16 Now the outer layer is glued. Glue is only applied to edge where the window-felt goes and on the sides. Again, this is just another way to make the crown look as smooth as possible. If this layer were completely glued down it would show any imperfections in the metal cap. If you look close you can see how we folded the first layer over the sides.

17 Once the glue tacked up, the outer layer was pulled tight and stuck in place. Then the top edge was trimmed flush with the window-felt area. The top edge should not pose an issue, but the corners just might if you are new to upholstery.

18 These door panels will create two different issues once you roll it over and try and stick it down. The very top section by the seal area will make the material bunch up, while just inches lower it's getting stretched too tight. The tight area is taken care of with just a few little cuts to let the material fan out as seen at the bottom of the photo. For the bunched up area you want to turn the bunches into clean folds that run up into a point. Then take scissors or a razor and trim off everything sticking up.

19 With everything pulled, glued and trimmed, the window-felts can be installed. There is a left and right so make sure to compare with your stock stuff before proceeding. The seals basically line up on the back edge of the door panel cap, but we used the old staple holes to lineup our stock piece and mark its position just to be safe. By the way, we used a needle to locate the little holes where the staples went so you could see them in the picture but you can just look on the back side when you are lining it up.

20 The window-felts can be screwed, stapled, or pop riveted to the door panel. We decided on 1/8-inch pop rivets since we already had the tool out. A couple of clamps will help hold the window-felt in place and also pull the fold out of the way so you don't damage it while drilling.

21 The new clips from OPGI are a perfect duplication of the factory ones and fit right into the precut holes. We couldn't find any rhyme or reason to their positioning, some were up, some were down, and one was even sideways, so just look to your old panel for positioning. Just get them kind of close since you will most definitely need to adjust them a bit when you go to put the panel on.

22 We used a razor blade to carefully cut an "X" where the lock ferrules go. The ferrules have four little tabs that bend over on the bottom to lock it in place.

23 Since we are using new armrest bases and pads they need to be joined with the screws provided in the OPGI kit. There are left and rights to these so make sure to test fit the pad to confirm it'Is going on the correct base.

24 The outer window felt snaps into holes in the door skin. We used a flat blade screwdriver to pry the old one out before installing the new one. Since OPGI replicates the factory stuff, all the clips lined up with the factory holes. Man, it's so nice to install parts that fit.

25 We also picked up the foam seals and springs for the handles. The foam goes on first, followed by the spring. We assume the foam keeps the spring from squeaking and the spring is there to keep the door panel pushed up tight against the handles for a nice look. If you notice, we have the armrest base screws threaded into their respective holes. We'll get into why in a few.

26 These cars have plastic inserts in the doorskin that the door panel clips go into. Without these inserts, the holes are too big for the clips to hold on. We had a few that were missing so we picked up a pack from OPGI and pounded them in with a hammer.

27 With everything ready, we finally placed the newly constructed door panel on the car. The upper cap will snap over the top of the door, the clips will hold the sides and some screws will hold the very bottom. The clips will most likely not totally line up but a small pair of pliers is all that's needed to move them into position.

28 Once the panel is tight against the door, you will see the window cranks trying to poke out of the panel. We recommend using scissors to cut the necessary holes. Remember the armrest base screws from earlier? Well, these will also be popping out, which makes locating the holes much easier.

29 The new handles we got are nice and shiny and they simply push on. If you look closely, you can see the grey plastic washer between the handle and panel. These are a must as they keep the spinning handles (window and vent window on El Cos) from wearing a hole in the door panel.

30 Even though we had the armrest base screws in place, sometimes it can be difficult to locate screw holes. An awl will be you friend in these scenarios. The sound dampening material on the door made it harder to relocate the hole but the awl helped us find it so we could get the armrests on.

31 The factory screw holes, at some point in this car's life, got enlarged. We are not really sure why, but that's the sort of stuff you run into with older cars. We decided to use the factory-correct size so we needed to drill new holes. The tape is there so we could measure out the spacing and mark the panel temporarily.

32 With the installation of the lower screws, we were done. Now the doors are not an embarrassment to open. All the components we picked up from OPGI were topnotch and fit as they should. We have to say we're not sure buying the non-assembled route is worth the trouble. We spent a legit three hours just on the assembly of the door panels and after doing the math we only saved 54 bucks. We know money is tight these days, so we wanted to pass on the knowledge needed to do the complete job, or you could save three hours and spend $54 bucks more on the assembled stuff.